Many people think that flipped classes thrive on school cancellations. "All your stuff is online, so that must be great, right?" Well, actually no. Snow days still impact learning, and I could argue it's worse for flippers ... unless you plan just right.
         First, let me describe the trials and travails of snow day drama....

       It begins with a weather report. You hear about it from a friend, or a blurb on the radio, or maybe "Winter Storm Watch" pops up on your phone as you're walking out the building one Tuesday afternoon. If it's just 2 or 3 inches of snow then you know they won't cancel (unless you live somewhere like Tennessee or Georgia where an inch of snow paralyzes the community). But if it's around 6 inches in the forecast then you've got a good chance.  Timing also matters a lot: a snowstorm that starts around 1 or 2 pm will not cancel school if it's over by midnight. 
          So we live through 1 or 2 days of confusion and rumors-- "I heard we might get 12 inches!"  "Channel 7 said that it might go out to sea and we'll get almost nothing"  "We might be on the rain-snow line for this storm..." -- and the uncertainty impacts your lesson planning. You do the best you can in the couple of days before The Storm, but these questions plague you:

• Should I change that assignment due date?
• Maybe we shouldn't do that activity today, in case we can't debrief it tomorrow.
• Would this classwork be okay as a homework item instead?
• Do I have enough ibuprofen at home to survive all that shoveling??

          
      The phone call comes from the superintendent's office. Some simply announce the cancellation (or occasionally a 2-hour delayed start) and others explain their reasoning.  When the storm is huge (10+ inches on the way), we get the call as early as 4PM; usually they wait until the 5-6 AM hour on the morning of.  

asdf  Many hours of the snow day itself are enjoyable, but that's not what this post is about.

      The main purpose of flipped learning is to activate and invigorate the shared learning space: class time.   When you lose that time, then you lose (or postpone) that learning.  The video lessons do not replace me and they cannot replicate the classroom experiences where deeper learning takes place.  If I am clever enough and the stars align, then I can schedule a video homework assignment during the snow day ... but I cannot fully assess and apply their understanding until we're all back at school.
      For example, my students are currently working on improving a specific discussion skill during our "Creating the Constitution" unit. A few days ago they learned* from a 9-minute homemade video about the purpose, issues, conditions of the Philadelphia Convention.  I prepared 2 primary-source readings that I would scaffold and support with students last week, and they would be the basis for deep class discussion about the Executive Branch and the Federalists vs Anti-Federalists ratification debate -- plus connections with current events.  You cannot replicate that practice in the online world. (Discussion boards are a completely different animal than face-to-face conversation, so don't even try....)
       In past winters, other snow days have impacted a project-based learning activity, a classroom simulation, or another shared learning space experience that cannot be 'flipped' into homework.  I blogged about my struggles in the epic winter of 2015 in real time.  

       The inescapable lesson is that flipped learning does not replace the teacher, and video lessons will never replace the teacher. As a corollary, we see that flipping adds value to class time and adds anxiety to the teacher who loses this time.


​* Claim supported by quiz results below. In addition to the 39 "A" grades, 27 students scored a "B", which reflects proficient understanding (accurate but light on some factual recall).  Seven students haven't taken it yet because of illness/absence, and another seven students scored a 60 or lower, which means they need teacher intervention...another casualty of the snow days.

       I know that's not a common thing, but it is totally flipping true.  
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    Today I spent almost every minute from 8:00 to 3:00 in a school conference room with my 8th grade team colleagues. (I know that's not a common thing, either.) Parents had signed up for 15-minute slots, and we basically had a revolving door of mothers & fathers coming to talk with us about their child.  We feel kind of punchy by the afternoon from the lack of oxygen, over-familiarity with each other's comments, and our unfamiliarity with sitting still for seven straight hours.
       Once again, no parent complaints about my flipped classroom method.  
       Once again, there were several comments like "I've seen you in some of your videos!"
      Once again, I had various things to say about children's performance with speaking, listening, working groups, recalling information, synthesizing ideas, creating products, solving problems, and applying organization skills.  We do it all in my class, so I observe them in diverse settings and situations.

       Meanwhile, students were in our classrooms following a regular schedule -- traveling from substitute to substitute teacher.  That is far from ideal, and I'm sure it was some kind of a circus upstairs although my classroom did not look too bad:

          Haha!  Just kidding. I don't have a comfy butterfly chair.

        Anyway, I needed a rock-solid sub plan for today.  This week's flipped lesson is the first time all year that students are watching a video that Mr. Swan did not produce (!).  One is a 5-minute Youtube clip from a History Channel documentary (fair use!) and the other is a segment from an Annenberg Classroom video series.  I don't believe that I could make something better, so we use these overlapping videos to teach about the post-war situation in 1780s America.  There are several categories of problems we want students to recognize:  many states were in conflict with each other,  the Articles of Confederation created a super-weak national legislature,  and endebted veterans & farmers were gearing up for violent resistance. Last year, many students had lots of problems with learning from these videos.  I don't think it's just the content; it was my presentation of the task.
       Today, they had to watch the clips once WITHOUT taking notes and WITHOUT knowing the specific topics they need to know.  I hope that allowed them to absorb the general situation (America is in trouble), rather than play-pause-write-play-pause-write in their usual choppy disjointed way.  After 10-12 minutes, in which they should have watched on laptops at their own pace*, students could signal to the substitute to ask for the notes sheet, which lists the 3 topics I gave in the previous paragraph.  Let's see how this turns out!

* I considered having students watch together on the projector screen, but that defeats a major purpose of flipping: individual pacing for learning.

      Behold! Finally my first post of 2016-17.  Where have I been?  Does anybody care?  Do people still read this thing?!

        Nobody has died (yet) or got seriously injured. My house didn't burn down, my own children seem fairly well-adjusted, my marriage appears to remain intact, and no students have threatened to hurt me. Looking at the big picture, my life is going okay, but I have not felt like a role model or reliable source for the flipped-classroom method so blogging felt useless. This is just a weird year, but today feels like a rare moment of keeping my head afloat -- not drowning in fear, regret, and emails.
      This will be my venting post, for posterity's sake at the very least. Something more thoughtful and coherent might follow on another day....

• The school year literally started with an accidental fire alarm at 8:10 on the first day, before kids knew their lockers or even their homeroom teacher's name and face. We actually began the year in chaos.
• My school is starting a new Advisory system two mornings a week, which changed most class times and for which I feel unprepared and unqualified. Almost every Monday and Wednesday begins awkwardly. It's one more bloody thing to do twice a week.
• The guidance counselor who looped with this grade of students retired last June, so the kids don't know their current counselor as well.  The old one let them get away with almost anything!  I love their new counselor because she actually writes passes, enforces appointments, and doesn't let kids skip class.  That's been a culture shock for the students, and we are all suffering their disgust.
• I had major problems working with a teaching assistant who spent more time playing Bejeweled Blitz on her phone than circulating the classroom.  And when she did talk to students, it wasn't helpful. Fine, go back to your game and zap that hypercube!
• The presidential election season was another unique once-in-a-lifetime twist. One of the biggest challenges in my career was trying to navigate the topic appropriately for 8th graders. (The Access Hollywood tape didn't help!)  I have struggled for months about how much to disclose of my own personal political attitudes, and that also drained some energy.
• Personal things included some pretty bad insomnia in October and November.  A few times I woke up after just 3 hours of sleep and my body was like "Okay, let's go!" My brain disagreed.  I have already been sick three times: a week-long cold in early October; a brief stomach thing in mid-November; and a nasty flu just before Christmas that made me leave parent conferences early, then miss 2 days of school, then morphed into a sinus infection for the whole vacation week, and my lungs still don't feel quite right.

        Despite all these issues, I think my students are making decent progress.  We're on almost the same schedule as last year: ending the Revolutionary War in late-January.  Overall I prefer our assessment system this year, which I will post more about soon. It has just been so exhausting, like I'm running through sand (sometimes it feels more like quicksand).  Anybody else feeling kinda like this??